


objective: harmless fun

by lauraxtennant



Series: Ten/Rose Collection 2016 [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Birthday, F/M, Friendship, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:06:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6677227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauraxtennant/pseuds/lauraxtennant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Rose's 21st birthday, and the Doctor has a plan. Rose is not so sure about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	objective: harmless fun

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the anon who prompted this on tumblr with a request for Rose's birthday fic :)

Unlike her 20th, which had been a dramatic day filled with being chased by dragons ( _dragons!_ ), a skirmish with the authorities on the planet Trex, and the discovery of an alien imitating an 80s pop star, Rose Tyler’s 21st birthday was a comparably quiet affair.

For one thing, they stayed in one location for the day, rather than last year’s bouncing through time and space in the Doctor’s increasingly desperate attempts to give her the best birthday ever. Though Rose had enjoyed herself thoroughly with all the inadvertent trouble they’d stumbled into, the Time Lord’s lack of success on the fun and harmless front meant that he was apparently choosing a subtler approach this time.

“We’re…going to a funfair?” she said, repeating his announcement that morning with a dubious quirk of her eyebrow.

“Not just any funfair, Rose Tyler: the biggest and best funfair in the whole universe! Well, in this galaxy, at least. It spans the entirety of a planet called Endeavor Three, and - ” He finally ceased his excited spinning about the console and took in her expression. His hand dropped from the dematerialisation lever and his face fell simultaneously. “You don’t like it.”

She set aside the birthday card he’d got her and hopped up from the jumpseat to move over to him. Stroking his arm to soothe his distress, she tried to explain. “It’s not that I don’t like the idea, exactly…”

“I thought you’d love a good funfair,” he said, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. “The thrill of it, Rose! Rollercoasters thrice as tall as any you’ve possibly been on before, ghost trains that are properly scary, unlike those ones you lot have, ferris wheels that let you choose a holographic virtual reality to look out over…’

His voice had dropped into that tone he used whenever he was trying to entice her, excite her, and she couldn’t help but smile. “That sounds great, Doctor. Thanks.”

“But what is it about it that isn’t making your eyes light up?” he asked, studying her face intently. “I don’t want you to come with me just to placate me; it’s your birthday, Rose. I want it to be something you really want to do.”

She shrugged off her earlier hesitance, feeling silly, and looped her arm around his. “No, you’re right, it sounds amazing, let’s go!”

He stayed rooted to the spot when she tried to tug him down the ramp. “Come on, what is it?”

Rose let go of him and laughed. “It really don’t matter - ”

“Tell me?” he asked softly. When she didn’t say anything for a moment, he took it upon himself to start guessing. “Okay. Is it because you were hoping for something else, some specific thing? Or is it because it’s just you and me today and you wanted a big party for your 21st? Oh! Ha! That’s it, isn’t it? I’m daft, I should have thought of that, of course you’d want to be with your Mum and your friends today, it’s a big one for humans, isn’t it? Twenty-one? Just give me five minutes and I’ll rejig the coordinates, we’ll head to Earth and aim for last week to tell your Mum to plan a party and send out some invites, and then we’ll get dressed up and jump ahead and - you’re staring at me.”

She was grinning at him, too. “That all sounds great, too, Doctor, thanks - and maybe we can do that at the weekend or something, but…today I want to just be with you.”

“You do?” he murmured, and when she nodded he beamed and let out a small noise of delight from the back of his throat. Then he frowned again. “Then what is it? Because if it’s…well, if it’s - listen, last year I tried to take you somewhere romantic and we ended up getting chased by Dragtorans - ”

“Dragons,” she corrected, with a poke to his chest, determined to stand firm in her decision that the red, fire-breathing creatures they’d encountered on the beautiful planet Dovaria were in fact the mythical creatures of Earth. 

He rolled his eyes at this and continued, “And then our dinner on Trex - which, I might point out, had candles because I took you for a candlelit meal - was ruined by that small misunderstanding with the Prime Minister -”

“Small misunderstanding? You set his sacred cloak on fire!”

“It was an accident! And then I finally get you to a concert and Madonna’s been kidnapped and replaced by an alien!”

Rose giggled. “Yeah, what’s your point? Saved her, didn’t we?”

“My point is, clearly the date thing just isn’t going to work out, the universe is compelled to thwart any attempts at giving me a quiet, lovely day - your birthday - to show you how…well, how…” He trailed off upon noticing Rose’s widened eyes.

“How what, Doctor?” she prompted, incredibly pleased with where all this was going.

He swallowed. “How important you are.” She bit her lip, smiling, and he quickly added, “To the universe!” She raised her eyebrows at him knowingly. “Oh all right,” he relented, “To me.”

“You’re so sweet.”

“Well. Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Doctor, I had a brilliant time last year,” she assured him. “But a trip to a funfair is still gonna be like a date. You know that, right?”

His brow furrowed. “Is it?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty cliché, actually - ”

“Oi! I am anything but cliché, I resent that entirely.” He sniffed. “See if I win you a stuffed teddy on one of those hook a duck stalls, now.” 

Rose laughed and stepped towards him, and his arms automatically unfolded from where they were crossed at his chest. She hugged him tight, sighing happily at the way he instantly returned her embrace.

“Don’t worry. One of things I really like about you is the way you turn something cliché into the most fun adventure ever.” At this news, he made that delighted sound again and squeezed her tighter. She continued, “The thing is, Doctor, that’s kind of my point. And I don’t know about you, but having watched Final Destination 3 the other day, I’m really not sure I can handle a ‘harmless’ day out at the funfair turning into an adventure like that…”

To Rose’s surprise and frustration, the Doctor burst out laughing. 

She pulled right out of their hug. “Hey! I’m being serious: knowing our luck? We’d end up being chased by actual ghosts on the ghost train, get stuck at the top of that ferris wheel you mentioned ‘cos of some sort of Funfair Takeover plot where the whole park comes to a standstill, or, scariest of all, plummet to our deaths on that crazy high rollercoaster!”

He was smiling at her so widely that she glared at him. In response, he took her hands in his and squeezed. “Rose. You laughed through that entire film. Don’t tell me you’re seriously so spooked by a naff thriller with admittedly quite hilarious special effects that you’re never gonna set foot in a funfair ever again?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “Okay, you make it sound daft when you put it like that. But! You have to admit that we’re magnets for trouble, and I dunno if I want to take that risk in a place with so many large mechanical rides.” She shuddered for effect.

“Firstly, you are the trouble magnet, Rose Jeopardy-Friendly Tyler, and secondly, the health and safety regulations of this place are top notch, I promise. It’s the year 4025 for a start, which happens to be a decade after some really excessive health and safety laws - I mean, they banned the anti-grav coaster, Rose! It was a travesty! Whoever died on an anti-grav coaster? Well, several people actually but that was just because they flouted the rules. Always keep your arms and legs inside the carriage, Rose. Always. Even in anti-grav. Anyway, point is, there have been exactly zero fatalities there ever since. We’ll be quite safe.”

“Well, now you’ve definitely just jinxed it,” she said, giving him a sardonic look.

He laughed. “Okay, maybe I have, maybe there will be an alien invasion and maybe we’ll stop it and then we can say, for the rest of your life, that on your 21st birthday we prevented an evil scientist from another world from taking over the planet Endeavor Three - ”

Rose squinted her eyes thoughtfully. “What happened to Endeavor One and Two?”

“Hmm?” He began to tug on his earlobe. “Sorry?”

“Doctor.”

“Oh, fine, the first was obliterated in a terribly unfortunate incident with a solar flare - but only after everyone was evacuated off-planet! They were fine!”

“And the second?”

He mumbled something.

“Pardon?”

“It got lost.”

“Lost? How can a planet get lost?”

“Beats me! Always meant to go back and look for it, actually; never got around to it. Maybe we’ll do that tomorrow. Anyway. Endeavor Three is universe-renowned, so it’s well-looked after these days.” He looked at her expectantly. “So, what do you say? Take a chance? It’ll be very fun and exciting, alien invasion or not, you have to concede that.”

“Okay. As long as you tell me if you get the slightest feeling that a bolt’s gone missing from the rollercoaster, or something.”

“Cross my hearts,” he promised, and bounced eagerly. “So we’ll go?”

“You’re such a big kid,” she said fondly. “But yes. Let’s do it. Oh wait, one more condition…”

“Yeah?”

“Candyfloss. You’re buying.” 

“Of course! It is your birthday.” He pulled her towards the TARDIS doors.

“Also, don’t think I’m gonna forget all this talk of dates and romance. You, Doctor, have secretly been a big sap all this time, haven’t you?” she teased, swinging their joined hands.

“Big kid, big sap, that’s me,” he said happily, then seemed to realise what he’d agreed to. “Although obviously we’ll keep that latter thing between us.”

“Yeah, all your enemies already know that your main objective in life is fun and mischief, but god forbid they find out you write sonnets in your best friend’s birthday cards.”

Given that they had exited the TARDIS and were now surrounded by tourists as they walked towards the park’s entrance, Rose wasn’t surprised by his hastily whispered, “Shhh!” Then, indignant. “That sonnet took me months and it was very inventive, thank you.”

“Course it was, Doctor. You could give Shakespeare a run for his money.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said, but preened, adjusting his tie with his free hand. 

“What I wanna know is, how comes you didn’t get me a present?” 

He turned his head to look at her, a horrified expression on his face. Rose laughed, and bumped his shoulder with hers. 

“I’m kidding! You don’t have to get me anything other than this,” she said, sweeping her arm out dramatically to indicate their trip. 

Three hours later, he won her a stuffed teddy on the hook a duck stall, and proclaimed that her birthday gift. She thanked him with a snog at the top of the futuristic ferris wheel he’d raved about, and laughed when he dropped his candyfloss in surprise. He kissed her back, though, and the virtual reality they selected for the ride wasn’t manufactured at all, because all they wanted was the reality they were living right now. Besides, they only marvelled at the view of the funfair below for an approximate total of three minutes out of twelve. Snogging sort of took priority. 

Some things transcend time and space.


End file.
